Motley Fool on Microsoft vs. Linux 147
Simon Janes writes "In a two part article series, Rob Landly (aka TMF_Oak) discusses Network Effects and how they make a product more valuable to users. Rob continues his series the next day with a discussion of Microsoft vs. Linux. This is excellent 'outside of the industry' press for Linux because 'Fools' are people like nurses, teachers, accountatnts and retirees who are not normally exposed to this."
"First, shoot all the lawyers." --Bill X (Score:4)
- stupid
- commercial
- server
- business server
- goes wrong
I could ask similar questions about the part I didn't quote, too, as in "win", "apps", "win apps", and "non-commericial use". (Note that "win" as you used it is a nice example of a single-word oxymoron.)The fear of taking responsibility for one's own choices, and for solving one's own problems, has reached epidemic status in our litigious society. It's a wonder anything ever gets done at all with so many cowards and crybabies running to their licences and lawyers every day.
Re:"First, shoot all the lawyers." --Bill X (Score:1)
IIRC a family in America somewhere just received over $300 million in compensation because they had ended up paying $750 more for a cable system than they thought they would? While undoubtedly the company in question had some form of hidden charges in the contract, what on earth was the judge thinking of for awarding that much for such a petty case?
Clear this up... (Score:1)
In "anti-Microsoft-monopoly," I meant for monopoly to apply Microsoft. I'm sorry that I didn't make this clear. Linux is the opposite of a monopoly; there are so many different organizations/companies/individual hackers that drive Linux, and so many different distributions (a new one comes out almost biweekly) that Linux could be thought of (by the DoJ & Associates) as a model of how a non-monopolistic 'organization' can succeed. I can't see into the minds of the big guys in this case, but I can guess that a few of them at the DoJ are thinking that if Linux can succeed as an assortment of different individual entities, why not make Microsoft into the same thing? Imagine if there were twenty different distributions of Windows, each by a different Baby Gates company.
ken
PS - Again, just my opinion. You are permitted to disagree.
Re:Mind control, mass hypnosis, and the PC police (Score:1)
What's wrong with a Microsoft accent? I think that Linux will eventually become everything that's good about Microsoft's OSes and more without the bad parts of MS.
True, nothing I list is really inherent to the kernel, which is what Linux technically is. I was targetting the specifics of Linux on the desktop. As I said, I'm sure that I missed a few things. Linux on the desktop is what the average Joe Computer User is going to see, not the kernel and stuff like that. If Linux is to succeed, Joe has gotta be happy with it. It seemed like the remote apps thing didn't hit the right target. Remote applications could be the future of business computing. Each user could have even a spare 386 running the SVGAlib version of the VNC viewer connected by a decently fast network to a few powerful computers managed by people who really know what to do with really powerful computers. The question is return on investment. It is not very difficult to add another user with VNC server on the main server and put a spare 386 in their office, but in today's business world where most everyone has their own computer, installing a new computer means going through complicated setups and other time-wasting things and then having to upgrade it when users start using an app that requires more speed. And of course there are calls for help and stuff that require the IT folks to go to the employee's office. Wtih a centralized server, upgrading would be done to only a few server computers. Money would be saved because the fast processors would almost always be in use, instead of wasting clock cycles in employees' computers when they are not in full use. Everyone would get the same, powerful computer (although it would probably be possible to set process priorities to favor the executives) and any calls for help could be answered on the phone while the IT guy looks at the employee's desktop on their own computer. It's all about return on investments. Think about it, guys. And remember that the VNC approach works almost flawlessly on Linux, okay on Win95, and (from my experience) barely acceptable using MacOS as the server.
About the free OSes: sure there are a lot of Unices that are free besides Linux (FreeBSD comes immediately to mind), but Linux has the widest user base among them, and the most developers concentrating specifically on it, and a few other good things that make the three contenders really MacOS, Windows, and Linux. I can see a future where Linux is on the top. Microsoft could sell Windows 2000 for free and still have hoardes of money. But they don't, for now.
Gotta go, Ken
Re:Mind control, mass hypnosis, and the PC police (Score:2)
Then you go talking about this figmentational "desktop" bogosity again. I won't waste time talking about it again. I've done that a bunch lately. Check other threads.
Virtually no one writes anything for the Linux kernel. And very few people write anything for Linux-based operating systems. You're just seeing people work on Unix stuff, and you see it running on some vendor-supplied, Linux-based operating system and figure it's something specifically for the Linux OSes. In 99.98% of the cases, you're wrong in this.
And as for business computing... huh? What does that have to do with anything? Now you're coming very close to talking about the marketing world of lies and avarice. Geeks have no trek with that crap without losing their souls.
But quibbling aside, you're right about a good bit of this. For example, the need to have highly competent people managing the computers and the computing environments of the highly incompetent ones. You can never make computing easy enough for the idiots. The stupid shall be with us always. So you have to establish set-ups so that they have professional caretakers. System adminstration is as important as it ever was, if not more so. Show me a system that even an idiot can adminstrate, and I'll show you one that only idiots would ever use.
System adminstrators shouldn't have to be in the same hemisphere as their user unless new hardware requires installation. Anything else sould be location independent. Also, the number of sysadmins should be related more to the number of users than the number of machines. If you find that merely adding another host to your net incurs significantly more admin overhead, something's wrong. A professional sysadmin automates everything, so one more machine shouldn't matter very much. One more user, however, does, because it's the routine human interaction that takes all the non-exceptional-event time.
You are difficult to argue with. (Score:1)
Linux is so similar to other Unices in the development environment that you could argue that everything targetted specifically for Linux (except for some of the low-level stuff, and very few people are working on that) is really targetted for the entire Unix community. You can't see the exact motives for writing the software. But what happens is that most of the people who actually use the software happen to be running Linux. How Linux got to that point is beyond me because I did not personally experience it (Hey, what can you expect from a 14-year-old?) but I think it has something to do with the driver support, being free, and being fun, but that's just what I glean from other people. I just can't accept a 99.98% figure without a little contesting.
Business computing is the kind of computing that makes money. There are a lot of people who spend their spare time messing around with their computers and trying OSes like Linux, but what do they do to get their money? They work. And what do they use at work to (hopefully) boost their productivity? Computers. And there are a lot of people who use computers at work who couldn't care less about them once they walk out to their car. If you want to address the largest number of users, you have to get into the field of business computing. There are exceptions to everything.
Ken is done arguing.
PS - What goes up and never comes down? Tom C.'s karma! Are you some super-nerd? You have something to say about practically every news story in the past few weeks at least, if not the last year or so. How do you get a karma of 74 (last time I checked)? Well, for someone who wrote a book on Perl, that's sort of a given, but...
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
At any rate, just my opinions
Re:Hold on...MS isn't dead yet! (Score:1)
(RHAT closed today at 213.5, was as low as 45 or so when it opened, $14 was the IPO price; MSFT has been hovering around 85-95 for what seems like ages.)
I can't figure out why so many investors want in on RHAT, and I've been happily using (and developing for) GNU/Linux since 1992 or so.
But this huge NASDAQ run-up of late doesn't seem to have swept MSFT along in its wake -- it's almost as if people don't consider MSFT to be a likely beneficiary of the continuing Internet revolution!? Weird.
(Disclaimer: a relative of mine works at MSFT as Lead PM for MSIE.)
Re:Linux==Reverse Engineering? Sort of... (Score:1)
I happen to have used the same Operating Systems book for my OS class in college that Linus used to help write Linux. If I had not been so lazy I would have looked up the correct spelling.
Checking the stocks (Score:1)
MS still makes ton's of money. They closed at 91 1/8, off from their one year high 100 3/4 but way up from their one year low of 59 5/16. Their stock has not really gone down since the findings of fact. They are still showing no change in their business practices that are bringing tons of money.
My point is that MS is not even hurting until their stock or bottom line starts to show it.
Re:Success will be (un)limited (Score:1)
Do you mean <like this>?
RTFM [w3.org].
Re:After the trial... (Score:2)
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
Linux does have organized testing, and it DOES have hundreds of engineers that make their living on improving it, employed by companies such as Redhat, SuSE, Caldera, Cygnus (being bought by Redhat), Corel, IBM, Compaq, VA Research, SGI, and lots of others.
We also have lots of good development tools, from companies such as Cygnus, IBM, and lots of others.
We have a choice of component models, from Corba, to Windows style DCOM (allthough who in their right mind would *use* that except for porting Windows applications), XPCOM (Mozilla project), and more.
If you've tried using Microsoft documentation and Linux documentation, I can't for my bare life imagine why you'd prefer Microsofts' (I've used both - I've been unfortunate enough do work on Windows projects a few times).
Support is available from lots of companies, including Cygnus, Redhat, Caldera, SuSE, IBM, LinuxCare and more.
As you can see, the main difference is that we rely on many providers, none which are vital to use, while Microsoft users are at the whim of Microsoft.
That's the main reason Linux is good for companies too: They aren't at the mercy of a 500 pound gorilla with no manners when they need help...
Why not just make a better product? (Score:2)
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
As to the tools. Sure there are things like DDD which are very usable but they don't even come close to the level of integration provided by MS IDEs. (KDevelop is very very close to the MS level..I hope they continue with this and provide us with stable version.)
Basically, the only hope for Linux is provided by KDE team. Eveything else is pretty much uncoordinated mess
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:3)
So, you think you can actually sue Microsoft, Sun, or ANY other software vendor when their software crashes and screws up your business? Have you ever bothered to read the licences for this software? They specifically state the manufacturer is NOT liable for any losses that might occur when the software fails. Have you ever heard of such a case? They simply do not happen, because of the licences. If I had someone working under me who proposed using any software because we could sue if something went wrong, I would consider firing them, because they would clearly be ignorant and incapable.
Eric Geyer
corduroy@sfo.com
thank microsoft (Score:2)
Microsoft has done so much for us, like create the internet, bring down the price of PCs and software, make an easy to use operating system. Without microsoft we would still be using DOS applications.
They have done so much for the world, brought PCs to a vast majority of people. Made it easy to connect to internet, all I have to do is load internet explorer, and internet is there.
Also, they have made programming easier, with Visual Basic. Even I can program applications, and I'm not particularly good with computers. Alot of applications look the same, so I don't have to go learning new interfaces all the time.
Many people complain about MS bad tackits, but I think what they have given us, the world, is easier use of computing. I think, other companies could not do this, because each would be inventing there own standards - there would be no one common interface, common look and feel of applications.
We should be thanking microsoft, thank you very much Bill Gates, your wonderful!
Hey! You! (Score:1)
Before you start firing off yet another knee-jerk flame to this guy, look closely at the message and try to pick out the sarcastic bits.
Re:From an Accountant. (Score:1)
Wrong. Take PeopleSoft [peoplesoft.com], a major ERP vendor, for example. It has a Windows interface that can be programmed via a drag-n-drop app builder that can also be used to generate Web-based 'self-service' apps. What does it use on the backend? An SQL database, the SQR scripting language for reports, and COBOL for the number crunching. The major thing keeping it from running the application server portion from running on linux is the lack of the necessary COBOL compiler.
Some people like to think COBOL is only for mainframes and written by old crusty programmers (and I do work with some old mainframe COBOL programmers). I know more COBOL programmers that are under 30 than I do the ones over 50. COBOL is still used for business because it was designed to fit the needs of business and has evolved to keep up with those needs. Like FORTRAN, it stays around because it works very well for what it was designed for. A huge codebase and lots of trained programmers also help, but they aren't the only factors.
BTW, there are at least two free (as in speech) COBOL projects in the works and have been posted to Slashdot in the past. Alan Cox is a contributor to one of them.
Re:Checking the stocks (Score:1)
I'd tend to agree.
Still, I wonder how well MSFT can do retaining enthusiastic, high-energy employees, as well as increasingly-tech-savvy investors, when everyone sees the free-software community, among others not part and parcel of the MSFT camp, outperforming MSFT in the stock market, and (maybe?) in the trend of capturing market share in new, even some existing, markets.
It is my belief few people are enthusiastic about the MSFT world because of the beauty, elegance, and simplicity of its products, as has been the case for Apple and some others.
So they're mostly really in it for the money, for the fame, for the perception that they're on the "cutting edge" of things.
Seems to me most of that has been going down the tubes lately. I think of my relative, who someday might have her grandchildren ask "how did you get so wealthy?", answering "I worked on a little product called Microsoft Internet Explorer, including a stint as a Program Manager", and hearing them say "oh, right, that's the product Microsoft created to destroy Netscape". Compared to being able to say "I worked on GNU/Linux software for years, up through the point at which the stock market finally took note"...?
Seems like a decision fewer and fewer cutting-edge-type people will make in favor of helping MSFT maintain its ham-handed dominance.
And once the market begins to see such "talent" no longer defaulting to employment by MSFT, and its potential customers see that too, how long can it maintain its earnings or its P/E??
It's nice (Score:2)
..."Free plus free
equals more than
NT"
Interesting note: www.fool.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:2)
As a developer I must say that getting good feedback from users and getting resect from users is far more important than earning (a lot) of money with the software.
So Open Source software benefits the author probably more than traditionally selling the product. (It always nice if you can get a living outof it, but that's never been the main issue I believe.)
Wouldn't you be doing the same stuff if you were not paid for it? (developers view)
a-quite-happy-soft-dev
Re:Gimme some karma, boyz! (Score:1)
Well, he didn't ask for postive karma, did he?
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It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Linux is unFUDable (Score:2)
However,
Microsoft's high end is the desktop, and that's the last market Linux will take over.
This is a telling point, and one that is rarely made in analyses of Linux. We'll get there in the end, but only after all the other markets have fallen.
Re:Success will be (un)limited (Score:1)
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
I can't see anything bad about less OSes. Having multiple OSes means having apps for each one, and uses to which one is more suited than the other...
Some OSes don't seem like viable merge candidates. The toaster doesn't need to run Linux. But, I can't see why some unix core with a nice GUI should run 99.99% of PCs.
For one thing, Unix isn't real-time (and neither is BeOS, BTW). There are plenty of applications running on PC's where an RTOS is a requirement, notably in the industry. Of course, it only applies for a small percentage of users.
In all the years that Unix exists, nobody has been able to come up with a decent GUI that supports data-sharing between applications, drag-and-drop, the like, whereas interrupt-handler MS-DOS somehow mutated into a fairly usable multitasking OS that does do this.
Less OSes certainly is a Good Thing - why are there more versions of Unix than there are craters on the moon? - but there's no such thing as the ultimate OS for all applications. Jack of all trades, but master of none.
As for me, I don't see the very specific stuff - music and audio - moving from the Mac and Windows to Linux, but BeOS definately has grabbed some ground here.
And BeOS builds heavily on Unix anyway... :-)
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:2)
The reason a lot of graphics stuff is still done on the Mac is just inertia from when it was better. That'd be like not using Linux with X because the UNIX system you used in the early 80s was CLI only...
There are some applications, like the real-time one you mentioned, and extremely tiny embedded one, which wouldn't need or work well with even a stripped down version of a real OS, but those are fairly few and far between. And I was talking about computers. Everything from a large organizer to a super computer. Not toasters or temperature probes.
It just seems to me that the days of an OS as a 'product' where you want to buy one because it's better than the others are looking like they'll soon be over. And we should encourage this. If we end up with an open source OS, it won't stifle innovation like having a single closed source OS would.
I like a lot of BeOS's features, but imho they're completely useless to me until they completely pass Linux and Windows in functionality. To me, rebooting into a different OS to use a different program is a terrible reminder of the late 80s, and I hoped to never have to do it again. So until something passes either of the OSes I use on my two computers, I'm not going to switch.
I may try BeOS some weekend when I'm not working, but I'm not going to use it, no matter how nice it is, until I can boot into it and stay there. And until it's got the applications, etc...
Sometimes imperfect standards are here to stay. We no longer use base 60, but we use a 12/24 hour, 60 minute clock. The width of train tracks wasn't decided by technical considerations, but by which company won the war. The QWERTY layout wasn't designed for speed or usability (even if you don't agree DVORAK is faster, you must admit QWERTY is designed to be bad.)
So, rather than reinventing a system just because part of the existing one doesn't work properly doesn't seem to be the way to go. Instead, fork off a dev branch, fix the feature, and get it folded back in as an option that people are encouraged to try. Eventually, the broken 'feature' will go away.
And this is where I see OSes. They're mutually exclusive; if I run two OSes I need to make sure they'll interoperate, and that my applications are available on both. If I patch client software I write, I need to make sure two versions get upgraded. I also can't (without a kludge like running one inside VMWare) run two at once. So it's an either-or proposition.
But, if all the effort was put into building one good free OS that nobody owned (could proprietize and take away) then we'd all benefit because we'd have one OS to run that would work on all the platforms, and so not require special programs (SAMBA) to enable interoperability.
Re:Success will be limited (Score:2)
Do a poll: if network admins could fix bugs as they came up, would they? The people who did the 3D water effects for the Titanic movie used a huge Linux cluster for processing. The kernel had limitations on the Alpha platform that prevented it from working right, but considering the money they'd saved over an NT based solution, they just put some ressources into making it work properly (and better than NT). Everyone now has a more stable Alpha platform.
As for documentation and some of the other comments you've made, the man pages and other Linux documentation are often more complete and more TRUE than MS' documentation on any given issue.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage [linuxsupportline.com]>
The Empire is falling (Score:1)
Yet another comfirmation that the reign of MS is over (or going to be over soon). It's only a matter of time, and everybody (ie., people other than slashdotters, tech-junkies, and other members of their species ;-) ) will be aware of the defiencies of MS products and the availability of better, cheaper alternatives.
However, an interesting thought is the observation that nothing lasts forever. Witness the crash of a century-old bank in England not long ago, for example. Will the age of Linux come to an end too? Computers are moving so fast that what took a century to fall may take a much shorter time (eg. MS). What will happen when the age of Linux is over? Just food for thought... :-)
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
OK, this answer is long overdue, sorry for that...
I've been thinking a bit about and I think we agree on most points. There's little I can contradict in your message.
Yet, I think that you can't pick any OS and bend it to your needs. The security model of Unix, for instance, is rather simple. It works, sure, and that's a merit as well. But if you look at the design of Windows NT, it's actually very nice. The implementation, however, leaves much to be desired.
I still think that an OS can be more suited for a certain purpose if it's designed from the ground up for exactly that purpose. BeOS is an example of that. I admit that software and hardware support is far from optimal, though.
And BeOS (and AmigaOS as well) has a very nice API. The one of Windows and X make me run away. Toolboxes only help to a certain extend.
My solution on the multiple OS situation will be to use multiple computers. My Pentium 200 will be the mail/internet machine under NT and my new one a music workstation (OK, and games).
Then again, I am a very a-typical user. The majority can use what they want, but what I'd want to avoid is that I would have to moo along with the herd, because there's no alternative to the OS of choice - whether that would be Windows or Unix.
if(life==NO_DoJ){while(1){linux-=msAttack();}} (Score:1)
This is why the trial is so important. If this trial fails, MS will come lash out at Linux and all of Microsoft's competitors with a vengence. MS will try to force the OEMs to go back to only MS software. Their power, if unrestrained, is absolute. Absolute power corrupts absolutly so they need to be restrained.
Let's hope that they are not above the law.
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
It's actually something else that needs improvement: Informed people should make decisions, not suits. That would kill a lot of "good arguments"
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
Not lying. Be careful in your choice of words. Simply expressing an opinion, which you do not agree with. Its a standard tactic of a poor rhetoritician to call a disagreement a lie. I personally do not agree with you either. I have spent many, many hours seaching MSDN CDs and the online Knowledgebase for information, without finding what I want. The information may indeed be there, but it is so poorly organized that it is impossible to find. Often, what I was looking for simply was not there. On the other hand, I can ALWAYS find what I want in online Linux resources - Usenet, HOWTO's, webpages, etc.
> Basically, the only hope for Linux is provided by KDE team. Eveything else is pretty much uncoordinated mess
Once again, your OPINION. I am not a fan of MS's IDEs and development tools. There are plenty of well coordinated and organized development teams in the Open Source world. There are even COMMERCIAL alternatives that run on Open Source platforms.
Eric Geyer
Conclusion Does Not Make Sense (Score:1)
Far too often quantity beats quality (Score:1)
Re:From an Accountant. (Score:1)
Sue software comp. for bad code? It's happended! (Score:1)
Companies have been sued for making faulty products before and have lost even with "iron" contracts that are supposed to protect them. MS could be next. The trial and findings of fact may open the flood gates.
Wouldn't it great if companies were required by law to make software that works?
Re:VB is NOT a good language (Score:2)
- Ease of use
- Rapid Prototyping
- Power
- Speed
:+)
Personally, I think you should go for the middle ground under Windoze - use Delphi, which has the RAD and Drag/Drool frontend of VB, but with almost as much power as C - not to mention that for many years, Borland^WInprise^WBorland had the fastest and most optimising compiler in existance for the Intel platform - I don't have any current stats, but imagine it must still be pretty goodVB is VASTLY easier to use than VC - so much is just click-drag-and-drool that in VC takes a week of headscratching to find the obscure MS-Specific call that does $FOO
With VB, you can have a "look and feel" prototype, will all screens in their final configuration but "dummy" fixed-text data, in about ten minutes. you can single-step in interpreted mode without having to recompile, you can add and remove forms, modules and so forth quickly and easily without having to recode half your calls.
With VC++, you can do anything the OS is willing to let you; in return for not having a pretty button for everything, you get a list a screenfull of buttons couldn't cover.
Compiled C is just faster and smaller than VB - and less files. there isn't a why, it just is
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Re:thank microsoft (Score:2)
I do not like Microsoft and never have. They have done nothing for the computer user except deliver overpriced and buggy software, drive up computer support costs and drive out their most innovative competitors.
Much of that is true - MS has evidently had a policy of dragging down or absorbing competitors, rather than just improving their product to compete better. On the other hand, they HAVE produced a halfway stable GUI product suitable for the Point-And-Drool generation; Much of the buggyness of Windows is due to backwards support considerations and the wide range of hardware they have to run it on. *I* don't like MS either, but I try to keep my dislike honest
Microsoft has done so much for us, like create the internet :+)
The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency created the internet. Timothy Berners-Lee made it popular by developing the WWW and making is invention free to all. Microsoft did NOTHING here. Even Bill Gates will tell you that Microsoft was very late in appreciating the internet.
Yep, word for word with you there. MS is probably the least innovative company I have ever seen - they seem to only reach out to absorb, without considering how they could reach into the empty spaces and create anew. That MS made a bad call on the value of the Internet is probably one of the only reasons it is usable today
bring down the price of PCs and software
Since when? Microsoft has never lowered the price of software that I can recall, and in fact Win 2000 represents a big price increase. What Micrsoft has done is drive out companies like Borland who really DID try to lower the price of software. As far as PC's, what exactly does Microsoft manufacture or sell in the way of PC's?
Probably the last sentence is the most important - the price of PCs has come down BECAUSE MS don't sell PCs, therefore the cheaper they can drag that price down, the better sales of their bundled software will be.
Nevertheless, Hardware prices have plummetted, and both speed and size exploded - largely due to MS Bloat's ever increasing requirements for speed and space. When you change to $OS_OF_CHOICE, you get the hardware benefits without the MSBloat that negates them. Similarly, the prices of NON-MS software have dropped, too - despite it's bugs, the universality of the DOS, then Windows platforms led to economy of scale, and free-market competition that pulled prices down. if there were fifty different OSs out there, then there would be little x-platform support due to manufacturer market closure and artificially high prices. Consider that many "Dinosaur Pen" big iron systems are now effectively slower than a couple of networked PCs. Now compare the prices of that hardware, and the prices (and restrictive, per CPU, don't DARE upgrade your hardware licencing) that is and was common. That this may well have happened if IBM had picked someone else, is probably true, but beyond anything but idle speculation.
make an easy to use operating system. Without microsoft we would still be using DOS applications
Nonsense. I bought my first Macintosh in 1984, long before Microsoft had a user friendly OS. Just like in the case of the Internet Microosoft was VERY late in delivering a real user friendly OS. Eleven years late to be exact.
Yep, spot on - this guy is talking rubbish here - MS bought in DOS (having already sold it) and only wrote Windows to compete in an existing GUI market. Anyone remember GEM?
They have done so much for the world, brought PCs to a vast majority of people. Made it easy to connect to internet, all I have to do is load internet explorer, and internet is there. Have you ever seen the internet setup tools that come with a Macintosh? They make Microsoft Internet configuration look like stone knives. When Mac users had a PPP scripting tool that would watch the user login, and autogenerate scripts, Windows users were still hand coding dialup scripts. :+)
Hmm. Admittedly, the guy is talking rubbish again, but throwing Pro-MAC fud back isn't an advantage. While MS weren't doing much in the way of built-in NET support, most ISPs were pushing out one-click installing, point-and-go disks from the Win3.1 days. since you would still have to enter so much into the mac PPP support util (phone numbers, login name, password, DNS, and so forth) this was effectively easier. It's probabably better to point out that MS forced most of these innovative, front-leading software companies out of business when they started building inherent PPP support into their OSs, but no-one dared complain it wasn't a natural part of the OS, given that UNIX has come with it since it was designed
Also, they have made programming easier, with Visual Basic. Has anyone ever told you the story of Apple's Mac BASIC? Back in 1984 Apple developed a really great, easy to use Basic - far better than anything Microsft had a the time. This product was the start of something really big for Apple. What happened to Mac BASIC? When Microsoft saw it they threatened Apple with discontinuation of all of their Mac products if Apple didn't kill Mac BASIC. Apple caved and killed Mac BASIC. Biggest mistake they ever made because it gave Microsoft control of the application base on the Mac. :+)
Just the sort of Position-Abuse the trial was about - and you can't blame Apple too much, given every other software and hardware manufacturer seems to have caved in too
The truth of the matter is that Microsoft has been a huge drag on progress in the PC market. :+)
Hmm. MS, on the whole, has been good for the PC market. However, most of the bits that were benefitial seem to be in the past, and most of the bits that are detrimental are in the present. MS seems to be less and less a positive force, and more a parasite on the PC and now Internet.
I *DID* mention I don't like MS either, didn't I?
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Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
> YOu would be hard pressed to contradict any of
> the points MS is making in that paper.
ms>The Linux community claims to have improved
ms>performance and scalability in the latest
ms>versions of the Linux Kernel (2.2), however ms>it's clear that Linux remains inferior to the ms>Windows NT® 4.0 operating system.
.
ms>The Linux SWAP file is limited to 128 MB.
This is clearly untrue.
ms>Linux security is all-or-nothing.
>Administrators cannot delegate administrative
>privileges: a user who needs any administrative
>capability must be made a full administrator,
Also not true.
That wasnnt too hard
Hold on...MS isn't dead yet! (Score:3)
All things do come to an end but I don't think that MS is going anywhere soon. There is still one tactic that they have not tried yet: making high quality, inexpensive software. MS could do it. They do have a lot of smart people working there. Their products lack quality often due to unreasonable deadlines and impossible requirements. I don't blame the programmers. I blame the managers and higher ups.
What if MS decided to give all those softies a chance to do things right?
Linux==Reverse Engineering? Sort of... (Score:2)
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
And can you give an example of anyone ever sueing Microsoft or Sun successfully when something went wrong with their COMMERCIAL software?
Bwa hahahahaha. I can't think of anything more futile.
Read one of the software licenses agreements for the commercial software you think you are so "not STUPID" to use. You will learn that they are not liable for anything.
THEY aren't stupid. They know that if they were liable for every time their software broke and people lost time and money, they would be sued into oblivion. So they specifically make you agree (through EULA's) that they are NOT liable.
So who is stupid here?
Why do I bother. It's only an anonymous coward.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:Nice article, but... (Score:2)
The implication would be that there are no Open Source projects that have "died out" for lack of continued development. This is just plain silly.
Open Source project will continue as long as people are interested in the effects, but the network effect that he describes is important here. If another alternative is available and better, then the development will stop or never start.
This is a demonsration that Linux (and Free Software in general) is unFUDable. If a project dies it is because of a REAL problem, not because the competing company says that it is dead technology.
Do you know of any Free Software project that dies because his competitors where saying it is dead technology, or it is "hobbyist" software...? Personnaly I can't think of any (but maybe you can).
Would GIMP have started if Photoshop was free (or even dirt cheap) and available on many platforms?
Yep, because Photoshop still wouldn't be free (speech), but the project most probably would have begun at a later date, because there wouldn't have been such a need for it (because of the proprietary alternative).
Re:After the trial... (Score:1)
Re:thank microsoft (Score:1)
>the internet, bring down the price of PCs and
>software, make an easy to use operating system.
>Without microsoft we would still be using DOS applications.
Without MS, we probably wouldn't even have DOS.
But then, CP/M was always better anyway
Re:thank microsoft (Score:1)
>like create the internet
Umm, no. Al Gore did that
Seriously, the Internet has been around a lot longer than MS...
>bring down the price of PC's
Umm, no. Intel can accept most of the blame for that one...
>make an easy to use operating system.
Until something screws up...
(Which never happens in any MS product as we all know
>made programming easier, with Visual Basic.
Ouch. Visual basic is a blemish in the world of programming. I know, I have to use it all the time at work, and it sucks.
As for the common interface utopia that you have envisioned. We all know the ultimate interface is vi...
The fact remains that the Microsoft name is a label. A big fuzzy helpful one to all the non-techies out there. They have spent many years and many billions of dollars grooming that image and it's just not realistic. Most times Microsoft products are inferior to most others, but they are a bigger name (and hey, it came with my computer.)
Re:Success will be limited (Score:2)
Linux has already gone beyond niche status in the server market, and is currently attracting a great deal of attention in the desktop, point-of-sale, embedded systems, and supercomputing markets. And its presence seems to be growing in all these areas (one of which, BTW, does not have any MS presence at all).
Oh, yeah, about your "as long as" -- Linux will always be an open source project, due to the nature of its license.
Linux lacks organized and official testing, and it lacks paid engineers who make their living improving it.
Microsoft has both, and look at the two decades worth of crap that they have released on the public.
As far as "make their living" goes, you must be thinking about some other species if you don't think more quality goes into a labor of love than what goes into a labor for wages.
But this is the real world, and people only do so much bona fide work.
They've already done enough to create a robust and multifeatured operating system and a whole pile of utilities and applications to run on it. In fact, they had already done so long before Linux came over the public's horizon. And now the coder base seems to be expanding faster than before.
they will fail due to lack of integration bonuses that you get with Windows.
Windows only "integrates" with other Windows systems. Linux integrates with almost anything. The biggest problem is the deliberate incompatibilities Redmond introduces with each new release of a product.
Windows will have the stability and reliability that Linux has
Sorry, but stability and reliability are not optional add-on features. The only way Windows will ever become S&R is when Redmond decides to re-write it from scratch with S&R in mind.
Of course they might. They're talking about S&R now that people are citing that as a reason for ditching their NT servers. But they started talking about "ease of use" the day they heard about the Mac, and it took them 12 years to get an approximation of what the original Mac offered. I think there is extremely small risk that Windows is going to undercut the competition in terms of S&R anytime during the next decade.
The recent Linux craze is a flash in the pan and will not result in significant change.
Linux has already been around for 8 years, and is already resulting in significant changes.
Microsoft is a tenacious foe, and will continue improving its products at an amazing rate.
Continue? Microsoft has never improved its products "at an amazing rate". Unless you're willing to be amazed at how slowly they improve things. The only thing they're tenacious about is maintaining their market share, and they've always done that by means uncorrelated with the quality of their products.
One thing Microsoft understands that Linuxers do not is the importance of excellent developer tools and support. Microsoft has excellent IDE's for each of its languages
If Microsoft's tools are so wonderful, how come their products are so crappy? (I think you have just presented an argument that handcrafted code is the way products should be developed!)
support for these tools are horrible
No, it's wonderful. When's the last time you wrote directly to a Microsoft developer and got help with a problem? What's the average turnaround time between the discovery of a bug in a Microsoft product and delivery of a fix?
source code licensing is ambiguous
No, it's perfectly clear.
Linux lacks a component model beyond shared libraries (basically, DLL's)
DLLs are a caveman's attempt at shared libraries. For some reason Linux's shared libriaries never resulted in a phrase like "DLL hell."
Linux needs something like COM
Linux has "something like COM." And just as with DLLs, the Linux variants are better thought out.
Microsoft has a lot of weapons on its side
Well, yes, here's something we can agree on. A monopolist's grip on the market. All the lawyers, marketers, astroturfers, and congressmen that money can buy. A paranoid monomaniacal asshole coordinating all their efforts against any competition that peeps up out of its foxhole. Yessir, they have lots of weapons. But nothing that would seem to lead to a better product.
Linux advocates should seek to emulate them.
No, Linux advocates should view them as damage and route around them.
Why recording + software industries make money (Score:1)
Corel Linux? (Score:1)
> Why the hell would my aunt want to concern herself with GCC?
I don't know, you tell me, why would your aunt want to concern herself with GCC?
re: Thank Microsoft ... (Score:1)
Re:Linux sucks ASS (Score:1)
>your huge library of Linux apps like XEyes and XCalc and XTerm?
It doesn't, but it probably got $89 out of him/her when he bought his computer.
Re:Reverse Engineering... and MINIX (Score:1)
Stuff like virtual consoles, the Bruce (who?) 32-bit patches, the bootable-from-the-HD patches and so forth... No one was running a run-of-the mill MINIX setup anymore.
The pressure was mounting on Andrew T. to incorporate patches back into the MINIX source code, to add support for news, TCP/IP... he refused.
That's when people like Fred Van Kempen started their "super Minix" (? name?) project... and Linus started Linux. The impression I had at the time he was yet another guy who wanted a better MINIX, could not get it from Andrew T. and simply started writing his own kernel. His take on the "you've got the source code, fix it" item in the MINIX FAQ, I guess.
But Linux did not reverse-engineer anything, he simply said _IMO_ "I'll build a better MINIX, I'll do it from scratch".
Anyway, that's what I remember from the time...
p.s.: Anyone still has their MINIX 1.5 mini-binder complete with floppies? I think it's still at my parents. (Egads, t'was the first piece of software I bought! ) Aaahh, the good ol' days of downloading all those MINIX patches over a 1200 baud modem using Kermit...
Re:Success will be (un)limited (Score:1)
WTF is up with using an open-caret close-caret sequence? I've seen other people do it. I gave up just now, but does one need to use HTML entities to make that work even with "plain old text" formatting?
Re:thank microsoft (Score:1)
> not have an easy to use GUI operating system.
That's a very debatable opinion.
There were many alternatives back in the late 70's and especially early 80's that had GUI environments before even Windows 1.0 appeared.
The Apple LISA(?), the ICL PERQ, the Commodore Amiga, and several others.
In the absence of MS, we really don't know what would have happened. Things might have been better, or they might have been worse, but I don't think the idea that without MS we wouldn't have had cheap GUI desktop computers isn't necessarily a viable one.
VB is NOT a good language (Score:2)
Basic would probably be dead if it was not for MS pushing it. Since they control it they have no competition in making compilers for it. Other languages, like C, C++, COBOL, Algol, Pascal, LISP, Java, etc. have competition. Their are choices and this forces the manufactures to imporove their systems to compete better. MS doesn't have to do that with VB.
The basic language does not support many things that programmers need. The implementations of many of their types are hidden from the vb programmer. A good programmer needs to know these things in order to write efficient code. For example, variants and arrays are totally hidden from the vb write. I have worked with passing VB types to C DLLs and have seen how these types are implemented. It is pretty ugly. One line of basic code can turn into many lines of C code and even more lines of assembly.
Finally VB forces the developer to rely on vast array of active-x components that are also hidden from developers. Only by trial and error can a developer guess how a control is implemented. If there is a problem a developer has two choices: write their own control or work around it. Either choice takes a considerable amuont of time.
VB represents everything that is bad in Microsoft. All flashy and pretty on the outside but ugly on the inside.
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
Microsoft's high end is the desktop, and that's the last market Linux will take over.
This is a telling point, and one that is rarely made in analyses of Linux. We'll get there in the end, but only after all the other markets have fallen.
Excuse me for laughing, but do we really want to go from a market dominated by Windows to a market dominated by Linux?
I seem to recall a story about this: kill the devil, and become the devil yourself.
I'd rather be found dead than having to use Linux for my interest: music and multimedia. BeOS is my choice here. Let OS's do what they're good at. Linux has its strong points, so have others. There is no can-all-do-all OS for all situations.
Re:From an Accountant. (Score:1)
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
This is a Troll and I Fell For It (Score:1)
Another post answered this but I just have to point this out again. Good try troollboy.
Also, they have made programming easier, with Visual Basic. Even I can program applications, and I'm not particularly good with computers.
If there is any reason to hate MSFT it is because people like U can make comments like this and see nothing wrong with such statements.
Die Microsoft Die
Bad Command Or File Name
Re:MS shooting itself in foot? (Score:1)
Disco Stu: [making indescribable body motions] Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... A-y-y-y!
[kicks his feet up on his desk wearing see-through platforms with water and fish inside]
Homer: Uh, your fish are dead.
Disco Stu: Yeah, I know. I... can't get them out of there.
Re:After the trial... (Score:2)
The term window manager really doesn't apply to Windows, at least not 9x, you'd have to totally rewrite USER, GDI, and possibly parts of KERNEL.
People get mad when their apps crash. People notice that for some reason their apps don't crash as much when they run them under Linux. Netscape seems to be an exception, at least for me.
FWIW, the glibc version seemed to crash quite a bit on my Caldera 2.2 system. I replaced it with the libc5 version and problems seemed to have been resolved...
If two things were equal in every way except that one was $90 and one was free, which one would you buy? And what if it turned out that the free one was better?
At least for corporations, Linux really isn't free (beer.) You have to pay for support, and having a CD and dead tree manual is really, really a good idea.
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
Christian
Re:"First, shoot all the lawyers." --Bill X (Score:1)
As for service contracts... If an exchange server crashes, how long will it take to fix? 99% Uptime! (1% unscheduled down-time is 20 working hours per year that the system will be unavailable!)
Re:Nice article, but... (Score:2)
Actually, just picking some nits here, but there are viable cheap alternatives to Photoshop in the closed source world...
Two are entirely commercial: Micrografx Picture Publisher used to be very very expensive, but is now a viable alternative to PS for most uses for about $50. Recent versions of Corel Photopaint ($100) are really really nice and have good features to rival Adobe's product...
Another is shareware: Paint Shop Pro is available fo a fraction of PS's $800 street price and it supports special effects, layers and masks like the other packages I mentioned...the usual features you look for in a PS replacement...
hmmmm (Score:1)
Re:Success will be limited (Score:2)
Yes, but the availability of source code is a powerful countervailing factor. Microsoft is famous for giving the developers incomplete API specifications and then releasing their own appplications which have performance made possible only through the use of undocumented system calls. The result in user space is applications from ISV's that use undocumented API calls merely to be competitive. This leads to upgrade incompatability issues.
Having open source is the ultimate insurance of complete knowledge of the OS. Microsoft can have the fanciest 'Knowledge Base' imaginable, but if they choose to make some os functions 'undocumented' this Knowedge Base is in fact corrupt and untrustable.
If Linux gets an "LDN" sort of system going, it would definitely be a good thing.
Design of a real LDN would be I think nearly impossible given the nature of Linux development.
Re:thank microsoft (Score:1)
I do not like Microsoft and never have. They have done nothing for the computer user except deliver overpriced and buggy software, drive up
computer support costs and drive out their most innovative competitors.
Microsoft has done so much for us, like create the internet
The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency created the internet. Timothy Berners-Lee made it popular by developing the WWW and making is invention free to all. Microsoft did NOTHING here. Even Bill Gates will tell you that Microsoft was very late in appreciating the internet.
bring down the price of PCs and software
Since when? Microsoft has never lowered the price of software that I can recall, and in fact Win 2000 represents a big price increase. What Micrsoft has done is drive out companies like Borland who really DID try to lower the price of software. As far as PC's, what exactly does Microsoft manufacture or sell in the way of PC's?
make an easy to use operating
system. Without microsoft we would still be using DOS applications
Nonsense. I bought my first Macintosh in 1984, long before Microsoft had a user friendly OS. Just like in the case of the Internet Microosoft was VERY late in delivering a real user friendly OS. Eleven years late to be exact.
They have done so much for the world, brought PCs to a vast majority of people. Made it easy to connect to internet, all I have to do is
load internet explorer, and internet is there.
Have you ever seen the internet setup tools that come with a Macintosh? They make Microsoft Internet configuration look like stone knives. When Mac users had a PPP scripting tool that would watch the user login, and autogenerate scripts, Windows users were still hand coding dialup scripts.
Also, they have made programming easier, with Visual Basic.
Has anyone ever told you the story of Apple's Mac BASIC? Back in 1984 Apple developed a really great easy to use Basic - far better than anything Microsft had a the time. This product was the start of something really big for Apple. What happened to Mac BASIC? When Microsoft saw it they threatened Apple with discontinuation of all of their Mac products if Apple didn't kill Mac BASIC. Apple caved and killed Mac BASIC. Biggest mistake they ever made because it gave Microsoft control of the application base on the Mac.
The truth of the matter is that Microsoft has been a huge drag on progress in the PC market.
Re:From an Accountant. (Score:1)
Have your ever heard of Visual Basic???? It is the Cobol of tomorrow...
Nice article, but... (Score:1)
It's a nice article and good for Linux and Open Source in general, but I do take objection to some of the statements.
Both Linux and Windows CE are small on embedded systems, but of the two I would suggest that CE is the more widely used. It is certainly true of most devices that readers of the Fool will come into daily contact with, e.g. the handheld PDA (Palm, CE, no linux?) and the cell-phone (Symbion, CE, no linux?)
The implication would be that there are no Open Source projects that have "died out" for lack of continued development. This is just plain silly. Open Source project will continue as long as people are interested in the effects, but the network effect that he describes is important here. If another alternative is available and better, then the development will stop or never start. Would GIMP have started if Photoshop was free (or even dirt cheap) and available on many platforms?
But, again, it is a good article and great PR for Linux and Open Source.
User-driven development (Score:2)
The way suits think, MS is right just because they make money. It's the same way IBM was before.
However, according to the rules for the new economy, the more money you make, the more money you make. This is because this is a war for standards. Why do you think VHS won out over BETA? There were more VHS products out there. Not that VHS was better. People didn't want to buy a product that you couldn't get movies for.
That's different for Linux. Linux adapts to "standards" because it has a user-driven development process. If there is a need for any kind of product, that product will appear. It just depends on attaining critical mass of people with know-how and people with use-how.
Everything is a matter of time. I think the user-driven development can succeed in the long run because it has a faster turn-around time than conventional marketing-driven development.
Network Effects (Score:2)
If some way of ensuring interoperability is guaranteed, e.g. via open communication standards, then *everyone* benefits from the network effect. It ceases to be a case of "my network vs. your network" since users can gain the advantages of both without being tied to either.
Of course, companies with potential monopoly power don't want competition, so may deliberately place barriers in the way of interoperability. This reduces competition, allows them to reap monopoly profits but most seriously prevents consumers from being able to gain the advantages of a unified network. The internet wouldn't be as great as it is today if it was fragmented into incompatible proprietary segments.
As I see it, if antitrust legislation in the next century is going to be effective then it will have to adapt to take this into account. Specifically, it should be made illegal to artificially create barriers to isolate your network from others in order to gain monopoly power in any sector. Such incompatibilities are an enormous source of consumer harm.
The relevance of this to the Microsoft case is pretty obvious, and I am sure everyone can think of a hundred other examples where companies have abused their ability to build barriers to interoperability. This is likely to become more and more important as networked technology plays a larger part in our lives.
Therefore, open standards are definitely the way forward from an economic perspective. If that occurs, then true market competition will reign.
After the trial... (Score:5)
Microsoft probably won't want to try to conquer Linux. Sure they have the money and the influence, but Linux, to the DoJ and friends, embodies anti-Microsoft-monoply, and if Microsoft starts messing with Linux, DoJ will jump on them. Microsoft knows this.
GNOME and KDE have made significant strides on making Linux a contender in the desktop environment. In some ways Linux has already overtaken Windows:
I'm sure I missed a few. Sure, Win has its advantages. But they are probably not going to stay for long.
Ken
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear oh dear oh dear! (Score:2)
Granted, Linux doesn't fit everywhere yet, but it can be used for many server applications right now.
It also adds to your skillset, and your employer loves you if you're saving money, so you can demand more money for your skills.
The desktop market is a different story. Given enough time, it can certainly gain market share there as well.
Re:Success will be limit (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear oh dear oh dear! (Score:2)
I like free software. I would pay lots of money for it if I had to. It's about being able to get a problem fixed as soon as it happens.
Monopoly != Bad (Score:2)
If AT&T had put their earnings into research on how to lower long distance rates, and had consistently dropped price, nobody would have tried to break them up.
If MS had made something like BeOS, small, fast, stable, pretty, and charged $45 for it, and published the APIs, etc, nobody would hate them.
The problem is that AT&T gouged consumers and user unfair trade practices to stop competitors. Much the same as Microsoft.
Even if Linux became a virtual monopoly, with it being hard to buy a PC without Linux installed, it wouldn't matter.
A company can't demand money for their distribution, so they can't hold companies at ransom with license fees. It doesn't cost the consumer any more to have Linux preinstalled. It would be done during testing anyways, at no cost.
Linux is served by being open, accessible... APIs are published and documented because they benefit from the same network effect as everything else.
Nobody would be harmed by Linux even if it was on 99.9% of new computers. Thus, nobody cares if it becomes a monopoly. Not only is there no central company to exploit it, but GNU/Linux (the GPL is important in this) can't be leveraged this way.
The only ones who could lose are Microsoft and other companies seeking to limit information.
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:2)
With open source, the developments in one OS are available to the others. You already see where BSD and Linux are very similar in the apps they can run, and the way they run them.
If apps can become similar, why wouldn't the OSes themselves converge?
I can't see anything bad about less OSes. Having multiple OSes means having apps for each one, and uses to which one is more suited than the other...
Some OSes don't seem like viable merge candidates. The toaster doesn't need to run Linux. But, I can't see why some unix core with a nice GUI should run 99.99% of PCs.
Re:Success will be limited (Score:1)
Name: tide70.microsoft.com
Address: 131.107.3.70
Aliases:
>
Sure, a truly unbiased "independant third party" comment. Can you say Astroturf?
Uhoh.. (Score:1)
But..I was not impressed with win200 bloat, and I've seen it crash already. Not even to mention the ridiculous pricing or the fact that a gamesOS doesn't need apps.. Word for Nintendo.. yippee!
//rdj
Re:from a computer scientist (Score:1)
Linux is IMO an OS for people who like a little tinkering, but not every user has to be able to turn out a decent-sized piece of code.
//rdj
Re:It's nice (Score:1)
1. Linux, as far as I know, did not start as a "the FSF's GNU project".
2. Linux, AFAIK is not a "reverse engineered Unix clone".
Besides, I think the article is a little too hurra-optimistic.
Regards,
January
Re:Respect vs. Selling | Open Source vs. Microsoft (Score:1)
Odd (Score:1)
www.fool.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
Also the bit about:
"It explains how software can be developed not by a team of highly trained professionals, but by a loose association of hobbyists organized through the Internet as a kind of fan club."
Uhm...the hobbyists are the highly trained professionals. It kindda makes the Linux developers sound like a Lemonade stand run by kids
acceptance time (Score:1)
i wonder, is it generally a fixed rate that is obtained for technology advancements in various disciplines? it seems that the rate of acquisition of information is speeding up (terence mckenna's timewave zero theory, others) - a concept that has really been illustrated to me by the explosive growth of information exchange on the internet, or even watching slashdot grow over the past few years. is it inevitable, since we now have a global information network, that new technologies and methods will always reach market acceptance, assuming that they are useful? how much does advertising influence market perception and neophilia?
just some thoughts
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
Re:Linux is unFUDable (Score:1)
Okay, my thoughts on this are based on common sense rather than empirical evicence, so I'll happily retract anything that's proved wrong.
Take the 'Linux Myths' page. This isn't a great example, as it was more widely circulated inside the linux community than outside, but it provides seemingly-compelling reasons to keep the hell away from Linux. As was mentioned earlier, name recognition counts for a lot, so 'microsoft says' carries a lot of weight amongst PHBs.
As far as their monopoly position is concerned, it's only recently that PC makers have been able to bundle Linux with impunity. Who knows how many people would be using Linux -- and how far along development would be -- if Dell were shipping Linux three years ago?
Re:The Empire is falling (Score:1)
The end of Open Source?
Yes, they will happen, but consider the forces that will have to be in place for that to happen.
First, there must be an insanely popular platform that Linux just cannot adapt to (quantum? bio? nano?) followed by that technology being adapted from whatever its' first niche is into whatever Linuxs' "master" niche is at that time. (Web servers? Embedded (alaCrusoe)?)
So yes, it may happen. Or perhaps we'll just clone Linus and use him to run the BioLinux distro...
Meow
Reverse Engineering (Score:1)
Re:Why people choose M$ (Score:1)
//rdj
Re:Why people choose M$ (Score:1)
Seriously, anyone who thinks that buying software from a company (be that Microsoft or RedHat or anyone) will prevent any failure of their system deserves such failures. This is what support contracts are for. I wonder how many decision makers confuse buying software with buying support. Microsoft propaganda certainly aims at spreading such misinformation (dare I say FUD).
Re:It's nice (Score:1)
Most ordinary people perceive Linux to be the complete distro, not just the kernel - and Red Hat, SuSE etc. encourage this impression. While the latter is probably the technically correct definition (RMS for one certainly claims that it is), under the former definition Linux really did start with the GNU project (AFAIK), which predated the kernel.
2. Linux, AFAIK is not a "reverse engineered Unix clone".
Of course it is! In the sense that it was developed by initially trying to emulate the behaviour of other unices as far as possible (pragmatically). Certainly the GNU tools were designed with high compatibility with UNIX in mind, and obviously the kernel had to be quite compatible (and it is certified POSIX compliant - but then again, so is NT!). But of course "clone" doesn't do it justice.
Re:thank microsoft (Score:1)
And after that be charged for the correction to their mistakes ownly to be given a new set of bugs which only make the product worse?
Should we thank M$ for stamping out some great inovations and creativity, buy threating, FUDding, buying and abosing their monolopy position?
As a professional developer should I be grateful when using the MSDN documentation only to find that the API does not work as specified and then spend hours of wasted time in trying to find the solution that works?
Certainly my answer to all these questions would be NO.
Re:Success will be limited (Score:2)
To be fair, Microsoft has shown tremendous capabilities for improving some of their products. The two prime examples are Windows 3.1-->Windows 95,and Internet Explorer. They have the deep pockets to be able to add features to a product at a prodigious rate. I think it is accurate to say that no organization -- commercial or OSS group, has ever demonstrated the ability to integrate complex features onto a project at a rate like MS can.
I believe that there is a fundamental bug in the MS revenue model that requires them to lead customers into to new technologies, not to adhere closely to customer's real world needs. Once you've sold everybody in the market a word processor, where is your next buck coming from? If quality were a matter of having the largest feature set, and innovation a matter of making rapid changes, Microsoft would have the best software in the world.
Microsoft's revenues are dependent upon their making rapid changes in their products -- the more frequent the releases the more frequent the revenue. But this is not necessarily the sames as continuous improvement. The OSS model is extremely fast at making patches to specific defects, but otherwise relatively slow. It's ready when it's ready. How long have I been salivating over KOffice? On the other hand, if you look at what now appears to be an extraodinary rate of improvementin KDE and Gnome, I think it is very clear that it isn't the raw rate at which features accrete into the system, but the surety that each step is a clear improvement over the last. When strung together these amount an impressive rate of improvement over the long haul.
If MS and OSS were chess players, the MS would make moves very rapidly, defeating its opponents by throwing them off balance and leading them into mistakes. OSS would be play with more deliberation, at each step improving its strategic position. If you set these players down at a chessboard, non-chess players would first be impressed by the speed with which MS made its moves, in seconds versus minutes for OSS. They might at first think that MS was a better player, but inevitably, MS would start to lose strategic position (e.g. a year ago MS was poised to capture the server market, now nobody thinks that's going to happen), followed eventually by material losses. It gets worse when you figure that MS is actually playing a game of simultaneous chess against an array of opponents, each OSS project has its own game running against MS, whereas MS's games have to be linked by a common strategy (e.g. dominance in tools is linked to dominance in OS).
I don't think that Microsoft is ever going to be forced out of the game. However, OSS is going to change the nature of the game it plays, force it to produce better products at a more deliberate rate, to listen more to their customers. I think that perhaps in five years there will probably be some MS products that I actually use because I like them.
Re:OSS only works for commodity software (Score:4)
Interestingly this is exactly how the author of the article described FUD: just wait and everything will get better!
The way I see it is that OSS works for software commodities, that is software that has been around long enough to loose its initial attractiveness. Once this attractiveness is lost people are no longer willing to pay enormous amounts of money for it.
Categories of software that can be classified as such are operating systems, word-processors, spreadsheets and so on. Interestingly this also applies to serverside stuff: mail servers, ftp servers, webservers and even database servers.
Companies selling software in the above list all use the same tactic: they somehow add value to the default functionality of the product thus making it special: ms bundles all sorts of stuff with their OS (which is still dos), they also bundle all their office stuff in one integrated package which in its turn mixes very well with the before mentioned OS. IBM and Oracle add management tools to their databases. Webservers are made attractive by offering management tools and integrating it with other stuff. The same applies to mailservers and ftp servers.
OSS is moving into new territories. The desktop, ms greatest added value to their OS, is becoming a commodity. So OSS will take over that too. MS has long realized this and has started to integrate all sorts of stuff in their OS. So far this tactic is working very well since the most used argument not to migrate to linux (on the desktop) is that windows applications just integrate better and are more feature rich. In due time this tactic will no longer work since OSS can provide users with the same level of integration (KDE) and functionality (many companies are working on or pondering linux version of their products).
What I hope I showed with this is that OSS is not suitable for all software, only the commodity software. Luckily, increasingly more software falls in that category.
Mind control, mass hypnosis, and the PC police (Score:3)
I wish people would use scare quotes every time they used "desktop environment" with the restrictive and dedicated sense of that computing environment used by people who don't really know anything at all about computers and who don't want to, as opposed to the more intuitive and generic use in which it means "the set-up on people's personal computers", which obviously isn't what you meant even though it's what you said. It's as strange to many of us as using the term "personal computer" to mean "Intel-based IBM PC using whatever Microsoft wants you to use" rather than the more intuitive and generic "computer used by a particular person".
Sometimes it's really as though the Linux people were speaking Unix with a Microsoft accent. Be very afraid. That's how they want you to speak, and thus, to think. :-(
Not everyone derives their working vocabulary from the insidious Microsoft propaganda virus, you know--especially in this forum of all places. The whole idea of controlling the word-choice in order to control the implicit agenda and by entension, the entire world view is surely some Orwellian nightmare invented by somebody's marketing department trying to create tacit corporate branding on innocuous, general-purpose words. It's like the pro-life/pro-choice spin. Or the PC police (please take that in multiple senses) all over again trying to weed out choices that have a message they don't like.
Nothing you list there is inherent to the Linux kernel, nor even to any of the dizzying panoply of Linux-based operating systems that use some flavor of the same. I certainly don't see how any of these GUI toys really have anything to do with Linuces in particular rather than any of the myriad other Unix systems running X11.The only thing that seems to distinguish itself is the price-point criterion, but it's unclear how important that truly is. First off, the Linux-based family of operating systems are hardly the only free OSes around. But more important, really, is that the price for even costly OSes continues to go down. So I can't see that, even if it were one today, this would long remain that distinguishing a factor. For many situations, a two-digit dollar amount is hardly enough to notice compared to all the other factors. It just gets lost in the noise.
Success will be limited (Score:2)
Re:After the trial... (Score:2)
- Number of Window Managers: Your average desktop user doesn't even know what that is, and is perfectly happy with *one* wm that works and that he understands (configuration options only make things complicated)
- Remote Apps: Your average desktop user doesn't know what they are, either. Nor does he/she care.
- Stability: Granted, that's a big bonus. And it's a real pain that one of the "killer" apps (netscape) sucks like it does, even under linux
- Cost: I think that the average desktop user would have to pay for installation and configuration anyway, so there isn't such a big difference there.
What Linux needs is a set of working, simple programs, not the (n+1)th window manager or tool kit. People will not want to learn ten different methods to do the same thing, if they're there. Oh, and a simple setup, and support and